The Yazidis are an ancient people, followers of a unique religion that blends elements of Islam, Judaism and Christianity with even more ancient practices, including sun worship.

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They believe in a single god who created the Earth and left it in the care of a peacock angel, Malak Ta'us.

Photos:Lalish targeted by ISIS

Photos:Lalish targeted by ISIS

Lalish, in northern Iraq's Nineveh Province, is the spiritual heartland for Yazidis.

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Photos:Lalish targeted by ISIS

Yazidis believe in one God as the creator of the world, but many have been raped or murdered by ISIS, which claims they are "devil worshipers."

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Photos:Lalish targeted by ISIS

The ancient Yazidi faith pre-dates Islam and Christianity.

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Photos:Lalish targeted by ISIS

About half a million people belong to the Yazidi community.

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Photos:Lalish targeted by ISIS

Thousands of Yazidis are still believed to be held by ISIS, in the parts of Syria and Iraq under its control.

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Photos:Lalish targeted by ISIS

Baba Sheikh, the spiritual leader of the Yazidis, says he hopes they will return home soon. "'I wish they all will come back -- we are going to welcome them warmly," he said.

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But this belief -- decried as "devil worship" by ISIS -- has been used by the Islamic extremists to justify murder, enslavement and rape.

"They took our girls, our homes and our families," says Yazidi spiritual leader Baba Sheikh. "They took all of them. We say our fruitful generation is our children, but they took them all, young and old."

In ISIS territory, Yazidi women can be bought and sold for money, bartered for weapons, even given as a gift; but this is not a simple commercial transaction -- ISIS has made rape and slavery part and parcel of its -- brutal -- theology.

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"ISIS fighters told us, 'This is the rule of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and we must do it,'" Noor explains. "[They said] 'Anyone who doesn't convert to Islam, we will kill the males and marry the girls. They are the spoils of war. '"

In its online English magazine, Dabiq, ISIS lays out its justification for its brutality against the Yazidis on religious grounds:

"Enslaving the families of the kuffar [unbelievers] and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah [Islamic law] that if anyone were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Qur'an and the narrations of the Prophet."

But theologians the world over point out that ISIS's actions have no basis in Islam.

"The people of ISIS don't represent Islam at all. In fact, if anything, they are anti-Islam," says London-based Imam Ajmal Masroor. "They have hijacked Islam. They have denigrated Islam. They have desecrated it."

"In Islam taking anyone as captive, mistreating them using them as sex slaves, torturing them and killing them is totally prohibited.